‘Jaws’ Is Coming Back to Theaters For Its 40th Anniversary

On June 20, 1975 a movie about an angry fish opened in about 500 theaters around the country. It was called Jaws, it was directed a guy named Steven Spielberg, it was scary as hell, and it changed the world forever. Its unique release strategy (wide instead of limited), intense television marketing campaign, and record-breaking box office essentially created the modern summer movie season and made Spielberg a household name. 40 years later, regardless of its impact, Jaws remains a masterpiece, and a much better and more interesting movie than the vast majority of so-called summer blockbusters that it birthed.

If you’ve never seen Jaws (or you’ve only seen it at home), you’ll have a unique opportunity to see just how powerful the movie is on the big screen, when it returns to theaters for a special engagement in honor of its 40th anniversary. According to Entertainment Weekly, on June 21 Universal is partnering with Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies to put that big toothy jerk of a shark back into multiplexes around the country. TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz “will provide a special introduction for an afternoon and evening showing, as well as an encore presentation on June 24.”

The showings will be at 2PM and 7PM local time on both dates. Tickets go on sale tomorrow; Friday, May 29. More info is available at the Fathom Events website. And yes I know my cutesy opening line was actually from Jaws 2, not Jaws. Just let me have it, please, it made me feel very clever.